


Super SEAL Nanny

by Calacious



Series: January in February [9]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Falling In Love, Family Feels, Hallmark AU, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29327208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: Steve knocks on the door of his childhood home, hoping that he'll be able to talk the new owner into selling it back to him. What he gets instead is so much better than he could ever have hoped for, even if it involves looking after a man and his two kids.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: January in February [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2139471
Comments: 10
Kudos: 143
Collections: Ficuary





	Super SEAL Nanny

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Confession
> 
> My confession, I've been working on this story for three years. This prompt is the spark I needed to finally finish it.
> 
> Inspired by watching: The Nanny Express on the Hallmark channel, first released in 2009, aired 5/13/18

"Huh, not what I was expecting, but I can work with this," the man who answers the door to Steve's childhood home says as he ushers Steve into the house.

It's a little like being taken by whirlwind, the man's hands move as fast as his mouth as he talks, and Steve can't keep up, doesn't really track what the man is saying at all until the man has turned to him with an expectant look on his face, eyebrow raised.

"Uh...sorry, what?" Steve asks, completely dumbfounded when the man rolls his eyes at him and plants his hands on his hips.

"I asked, can you start tomorrow?"

Steve blinks at the man and opens and closes his mouth for several seconds before he nods, even though he has no idea what it is that he's being asked to start tomorrow. 

The man, Daniel Williams, according to Steve's lawyer, is handsome, his blue eyes sharp and intelligent, his blonde hair slicked back in a way that is charming. He's wearing a tie, loosely wrapped around his neck, and his pressed shirt is untucked at the waist. Steve's heart does a little flip, and his gut twists as his mind unhelpfully supplies an image of the man sans everything but the tie, lying in mussed bedsheets on Steve's childhood bed. Mouth suddenly dry, Steve attempts to speak again and fails.

He'd come over to negotiate with the man, to get his home back, but he hadn't been expecting Daniel Williams to be drop-dead gorgeous. Steve hasn't been with a man since Freddie and hasn't thought about another man like this since then. It's a little overwhelming. Hell, it's a lot overwhelming.

"So, you'll be able to pick Grace and Charlie up from school and watch them until I'm home from work at midnight?" Daniel asks. "You'll be my new nanny? Or should I call you a manny? I'm not sure what the proper term for a male nanny is. The last three haven't worked out, and I'm kind of desperate here."

"Nanny is fine," Steve finds himself saying, even though he'd meant to set the man straight. Apparently, his mind and his mouth have far different plans than he does.

"Good, good," Daniel says. He holds his hand out to Steve, grip firm. "You can call me Danny."

"Steve," Steve says, holding Danny's hand a little longer than is strictly polite. Blushing, Steve reluctantly lets go of Danny's hand and hates that he feels a little bereft.

"Steve," Danny says his name in a way that makes Steve's toes curl and his heart race.

I am so screwed, Steve thinks as Danny leads him through the house (a house that Steve is already intimately familiar with, though Danny's changed things some since he's moved in) and explains Grace and Charlie's routine to Steve. 

It's simple enough, something that Steve can definitely handle, even though he's never been a nanny before and had never (truth be told) dreamed of being a nanny. He's a retired Navy SEAL, taking care of a teenager and a five-year-old should be simple, though he does wonder why the other three nannies haven't worked out.

"Uh, how much does this pay?" he asks when Danny's finished explaining his duties. He doesn’t really need the pay, but he doesn’t want the conversation to end, and he thinks that asking about pay is something a potential nanny would ask.

"Didn't the agency explain any of this to you?" Danny asks.

"I didn't exactly come from the agency," Steve admits, heart hammering in his chest.

Danny nods though. "So, you're responding to the advertisement that Grace, in all of her infinite fourteen-year-old wisdom, decided to post?"

Smiling sheepishly, Steve nods. A little white lie can't hurt him. Right? Danny sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. He rolls his eyes heavenward and mutters something underneath his breath before gracing Steve with another smile.

"Look, I don't really need a live-in nanny, despite what my daughter put in her ad, but..." Danny gives him a good once over and Steve tries not to squirm underneath his assessing gaze. "The other three nannies have all come from the agency, and like I said earlier, they haven't worked out. I suppose we could give this whole live-in nanny thing a go. I'll need to get a background check, you know, just to make sure --"

"That I'm not a serial killer, rapist," Steve interjects, earning a wan smile from talk-a-mile-a-minute, Danny.

Danny jabs a finger in his direction and nods. "Exactly. Not that I think you are a serial killer, rapist or anything. You aren't, are you?"

Steve laughs at the pinched look on Danny's face and shakes his head. "I just retired from the Navy. I was a SEAL."

"So you have killed people," Danny says, and then winces and blushes when it occurs to him what he's just said. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Steve says. "It's all classified anyway."

"Classified?" Danny questions, eyebrow raised.

Chuckling, Steve nods. "What is it that you do?"

"Don't think I didn't notice that you changed the subject," Danny says. "I'm a detective."

"With the police?" Steve asks.

Danny shakes his head. "I'm a private detective with an agency called Hawaii Five-0 Detective Agency."

“What kind of cases do you handle?” Steve can’t envision Danny spying on people having affairs and snapping pictures of stolen kisses.

“We have a working relationship with the HPD,” Danny says. “The case I’m working on now is, well, it’s confidential.”

“I see what you’re doing here,” Steve says. 

“Protecting the innocent and making sure that I don’t blow my cover?” Danny says, lips pressed together in a tight line. “It’s actually a pretty sensitive case, and, well, I need to know that you’ll be here, taking care of my children until I can get home in the evenings. I won’t always be gone so late; it should just be until this case breaks, then I’ll be on a more manageable schedule.”

“Let me guess, the other nannies couldn’t handle the late hours?” Steve asks. 

Nodding, Danny runs a hand through his hair. “Look, I’ll understand if you can’t take the job after all. I can’t guarantee what hours I’ll be working in the future, my schedule isn’t set in stone. Sometimes I work weekends, and --”

“I’ll do it,” Steve says, cutting Danny off, and cursing himself for taking a job that he really isn’t qualified for; one that he doesn’t really want. What he wants to do is get his childhood home back. 

“You sure about this?” Danny’s brow is furrowed, and Steve can see the worry lines on the man’s handsome face. 

“I’m sure.” He’s never been more unsure about anything in his life, but Danny doesn’t need to know that. 

“Great, thank you,” Danny says, eyes crinkling when he smiles and takes Steve’s hand again to shake it. “Thank you.”

“When should I move in?” Steve asks, silently cursing his inability to tell Danny the truth. 

“About that...give me a week to get the spare room cleaned out?” Danny asks. “Or rather, a week for Grace to clean the room out. It was her brilliant idea after all, she should be the one to do all of the dirty, er...clean-up work.”

“I can help,” the words are out of Steve’s mouth before he can take them back. He hopes that he doesn’t sound overly eager, like a serial killer or rapist might. “I mean, that is if you’d like.”

“Actually, that’d be great,” Danny says, relief evident in the way that his shoulders sag. The smile he gives Steve makes his heart melt a little. 

The spare room, it turns out, has been turned into some sort of storage space by the Williams’, and for the first few days as a live-in nanny, Steve sleeps on the couch. He’s had worse sleeping arrangements, and the couch is actually comfortable (something he has to tell Danny a number of times before the man actually believes him) compared to most of the places he’s slept in the past few years as a SEAL.

Still, when the guest room is ready for him, complete with a brand new bed that Danny purchased just for Steve (at Steve’s protest), Steve is happy to move into it. Though he was used to a lack of privacy in the military, he does enjoy having a private life once again. A door that can be closed when he needs some time to himself.

“So, do you live in the ocean?” Charlie asks one afternoon. He’s giving Steve a contemplative look, a slight frown on his face reminiscent of his father’s when Danny’s in a thoughtful mood, or trying to figure out the truth of something. It’s a look that Steve has seen often on Danny’s face of late. No doubt in relation to the confidential case that’s keeping him out until all hours of the night.

Steve blinks at the little boy and frowns. He scratches the back of his neck. “Uh, no, I live here, with you, your sister and your dad.”

“But Danno said you’re a seal,” Charlie says. “Seals live in the ocean. How come you don’t live in the ocean.”

Steve laughs and kneels down so that he can look Charlie in the eye. “I’m not that kind of SEAL.”

Charlie tilts his head and spears Steve with a look that makes his insides squirm. One day, Charlie’s going to make an excellent cop, or private detective, like his father, Steve thinks. 

“What kind of seal are you?” Charlie asks. 

“Yeah, Steve,” Grace says, smirking, eyes twinkling. “What kind of seal are you?”

“The kind who’s about to engage in a battle of tickles with a certain young man if he doesn’t get washed up for dinner,” Steve says, hands out at the ready to make good on his friendly threat. 

If his men could see him now, they wouldn’t know what to think. Steve had never been known for his sense of humor, and no one would dare dream of him playing with a child. His life has definitely taken a strange turn since he’d retired from the service. Not that he minds the turn his life has taken. 

Steve’s never entertained the thought of having children of his own, but now that he’s taking care of Danny’s kids, he finds himself daring to dream that one day he could have a family. Not just any family, though. If he’s being a hundred percent honest with himself, he realizes that he wants to be part of Danny’s family.

Charlie giggles as Steve starts making tickling movements with his fingers. It’s funny how he doesn’t even need to touch the little boy to make him laugh. Charlie turns around and runs, “I’m washing my hands! Keep your seal ticklers away from me.”

“Seal ticklers?” Danny asks, loosening his tie as he steps into the house. He looks tired, and Steve feels an urge to usher Danny into a chair so he can get off of his feet. Steve shakes himself, because he’s a former Navy Seal, not a househusband. 

“Uh,” Steve says eloquently, and he finds himself helping Danny out of his jacket, and watching as the man flops bonelessly onto the couch. 

“Yeah, Steve’s a seal, and he gages in tickle battles,” Charlie says, veering from his promise of hand washing to sidling up to his father and climbing on his lap. 

The exhaustion marring Danny’s features disappears as he listens to Charlie regale him with stories about his day, and about helping Steve make dinner. Danny turns to look at Steve over Charlie’s head, there’s a grateful grin on the man’s face, and his blue eyes are filled with gratitude, and something more. It makes Steve’s pulse quicken, and his tongue go dry. 

He blinks and turns away. “I’ll get dinner on the table,” he says.

“I’ll help,” Grace offers, and Danny gives her a grateful smile. “Danno, you and Charlie should go get washed up.”

“Are you saying I stink?” Danny asks, raising an eyebrow.

Grace waves a hand in front of her nose and wrinkles it in a way that Steve finds endearing. His heart thumps in his chest and he escapes to the kitchen where he leans against the counter and closes his eyes, which does nothing to help him, because all he can picture is waking up in Danny’s bed when Charlie bursts into the room eager to start the day. He quickly opens his eyes and tries to force the increasingly blissful domestic images away.

“Are you okay?” Grace asks, giving him a sidelong look.

Taking a deep breath, Steve pushes away from the counter and nods. “Yeah, fine. You got the plates?”

Grace nods, and darts over to give him a quick hug that makes Steve’s insides tingle. “You’re good for him,” she says.

“Huh?” Steve asks, he’s got four glasses balanced in his hand, and his head is a mess of jumbled thoughts and images, and he almost drops a glass, but Grace is there, steadying him.

“My dad,” she says. “You’re good for him. He smiles more, and he doesn’t worry about me and Charlie all the time.” 

Steve has no idea what to do with that information. It’s a bit overwhelming. 

“Do you like my dad?” Grace asks, and it almost sounds like an innocent question, but she’s got the same look of calculation on her face that Danny gets when he’s working out a solution to a case. 

“Your dad’s a nice guy,” Steve says.

Grace raises an eyebrow, and hip checks him as she places a plate next to the glass he’d put on the table. “Uh huh, but do you like him?”

“Who does Steve like?” Danny chooses that moment to walk into the kitchen, Charlie at his heels. He gives Steve a searching look, and Steve’s heart feels like it’s ready to jump right out of his chest at the hurt that he sees in Danny’s eyes. 

“He likes you, Daddy,” Charlie says, stepping past his dad to take his seat at the table like he’s not announced something profound and life altering. 

Things don’t fall into place for the four of them as simply as Charlie had made it sound. It takes months before Danny and Steve stop dancing around each other, and finally take that first step. It’s as simple as a kiss that Danny presses to his cheek when he walks in the front door late one night, and neither of them look back.

It’s not until several years after their wedding day, Danny dressed in a white tux with a tie the color of his eyes, and Steve dressed in cream, that Steve comes clean and confesses why he’d really stopped by the house that day. They laugh, and Danny calls him a goof, and Steve wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
